ANZ New Zealand has told its technology staff it wants to cut more than 100 permanent jobs, in a restructure that could move the bank’s software testing work to an outside company and possibly offshore.
The plan was first reported by the Australian Financial Review and picked up on Friday by the NZ Herald and RNZ. According to those reports, the bank briefed staff this week on changes affecting some of its 1500 permanent IT roles in New Zealand. More than 400 roles are caught up in the proposal, and more than 100 people are expected to lose their jobs. A two-week consultation period is under way, with decisions due to be finalised by early October.
At the heart of the plan is software testing. The AFR reported that ANZ wants to consolidate that work under a single strategic partner, and the Herald said the bank is considering shifting it offshore. Quality assurance engineers, lead engineers, product owners and project managers are among the roles under threat. A source not authorised to speak publicly told the AFR the bank had been in deep discussions with the Indian IT firms Infosys and HCLTech, although negotiations had not been finalised.
ANZ has confirmed the broad outline but not the numbers. An ANZ NZ spokesman told the Herald, “We are currently considering changes to our technology team, including bringing together related functions like data, AI and engineering for greater consistency and to make the most of expertise across ANZ. The proposed changes impact non-customer facing roles.”
The spokesman added, “Our immediate priority is supporting our people through this process. As this is an active consultation process, we are unable to comment further at this stage.” The bank also said it regularly reviews how the business is structured as part of its commitment to operate efficiently and deliver for customers.
ANZ is New Zealand’s largest bank and employs about 7000 people here, so the proposed cuts amount to well over 1 percent of its local workforce, and something like one in 15 of its permanent technology jobs.
First Union, which says it has about 800 members across ANZ but only six to 10 in the technology team, argues the restructure is really about sending work overseas. National organiser Callum Francis told the Herald, “It’s not the net loss alone that’s the problem. It’s that the organisation is trying to streamline and reduce duplication, in their terms, which appears to be predominantly about offshoring and reducing headcount.”
Francis also questioned how the move fits with the bank’s public commitments. “They claim to have this social responsibility or even social governance that means there’s certain things that they should do, but when it comes to their bottom line or when it comes to employees, this all just disappears,” he said. He told the Herald that proposals like this were becoming more common, and that he was worried about how easily affected workers would find new jobs in a squeezed market.
The New Zealand cuts are part of a much larger cost drive across the ANZ group. Nuno Matos became group chief executive in May 2025, and in September last year the bank announced it would remove 3500 roles. In its third quarter trading update on 13 August, ANZ said 84 percent of those roles had gone on a full-time-equivalent basis between April 2025 and the end of June 2026. Matos told investors the group remained committed to cutting costs by 5 percent this financial year, and the bank credited “productivity benefits from a continued focus on simplifying the organisation and optimising third-party spend” for a fall in operating expenses.
The pressure to cut does not come from a struggling New Zealand business. ANZ NZ reported a cash net profit of $1.238 billion for the six months to March 2026, up 2 percent on the previous half. Expenses fell 3 percent over the same period, which the bank put down to seasonality, productivity benefits and lower restructuring costs. Its total capital ratio stood at 17.1 percent, comfortably above the 14.5 percent the Reserve Bank requires.
The New Zealand arm has had other costs to absorb this year. In August the group booked a $125 million provision after a High Court ruling in May on a credit contracts class action against ANZ Bank New Zealand, a decision the bank says it has appealed. Margins have also been tight in a competitive mortgage market, with the bank’s net interest margin down 5 basis points in the March half.
The technology proposal also follows closely on another restructure closer to customers. Earlier this month ANZ proposed closing its Dunedin contact centre, with RNZ reporting the bank wanted to cut 15 customer-facing roles there to two and offer the other affected staff the chance to transfer to Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch.
Moving software testing to a large outside provider is a well-worn path for banks. Testing is labour-intensive, fairly easy to specify in a contract and does not usually involve direct contact with customers, which makes it one of the first functions big firms hand to global IT services companies. ANZ already runs large operations and technology centres in Bengaluru and Manila that support the wider group.
For the workers involved the next fortnight matters most. Under New Zealand employment law, an employer proposing redundancies must consult genuinely with affected staff, share relevant information and consider their feedback before making a final decision. That means the numbers could still change before ANZ confirms the outcome in early October.
The bank says the affected roles are not customer facing, so the changes are not meant to touch how customers deal with ANZ day to day. The bigger question is what the move says about where skilled technology work at New Zealand’s biggest bank will be done in future, and how many local tech jobs remain once the consolidation is finished.
Should big banks earning more than a billion dollars every six months be moving skilled New Zealand jobs offshore, or is this simply the cost of staying competitive? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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